1. Field
This document relates to a curing apparatus.
2. Related Art
In a display device such as an organic light emitting display (OLED), an electrophoretic display (EPD), and a liquid crystal display (LCD), elements or lines are formed by depositing a thin film.
The above mentioned display devices require a curing process for forming a solid thin film after a deposition process. An example of a curing apparatus used in manufacturing a display device includes a chamber type in which a cassette structure is stacked in multiple stages.
Each cassette has a lamp configured therein which allows the temperature in the cassette to increase from ambient temperature to high temperature. Such a cassette is usually designed such that a single or multiple target substrates are put therein.
A window plate is applied to each cassette to uniformly radiate heat generated from the lamp and prevent the formation of smears in the target substrates. The window plate performs a variety of functions including isolating a process zone where the target substrates are located and a lamp zone.
To this end, the window plate is made of large-size, plate-like quartz. The plate-like window plate is configured by being fitted to a slot formed at a side of each cassette.
However, it is difficult to fabricate a large-area curing apparatus because the window plate applied to each cassette is in the shape of a large-size plate. For instance, if deflection prevention is performed on the window plate to realize a large-area window plate, there follows the difficulty of thickness compensation or structure addition. Moreover, investment cost is expected to rise due to an increase in material and processing costs because it is difficult to fabricate a large-size, plate-like window plate. Therefore, there is a need to seek a solution for fabricating the window plate applied to a conventional curing apparatus to have a larger area.